11 This file contains information for anyone wanting to work on the Geany
12 codebase. You should be aware of the open source licenses used - see
13 the README file or the documentation. It is reStructuredText; the
14 source file is HACKING. You can generate hacking.html by running ``make
15 hacking-doc`` from the doc/ subdirectory.
19 * src/plugindata.h contains the plugin API data types.
20 * See plugins/demoplugin.c for a very basic example plugin.
21 * src/plugins.c loads and unloads plugins (you shouldn't need to read
23 * The API documentation contains a few basic guidelines and hints to
26 You should generate and read the plugin API documentation, see below.
28 Plugin API documentation
29 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
30 You can generate documentation for the plugin API using the doxygen
31 tool. Run ``make api-doc`` in the doc subdirectory. The documentation
32 will be output to doc/reference/index.html.
33 Alternatively you can view the API documentation online at
34 http://www.geany.org/manual/reference/.
38 We are happy to receive patches, but it's best to check with us by email
39 or mailing list whether a new feature is appropriate, and whether someone
40 is already working on similar code.
42 In general it's best to provide git-formatted patches made from the
43 current Git (see `Committing`_)::
46 $ git format-patch HEAD^
48 We also accept patches against other releases, but it's more work for us.
50 If you're not using Git, although you're strongly suggested to used it,
51 you can use the diff command::
53 $ diff -u originalpath modifiedpath > new-feature.patch
55 However, such a patch won't contain the authoring information nor the
59 Please make sure patches follow the style of existing code - In
60 particular, use tabs for indentation. See `Coding`_.
64 * Git: http://git-scm.com/ and http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/
65 * diff, grep, etc: http://mingw.org/ or http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/
67 See also the 'Building on Windows' document on the website.
71 callbacks.c is just for Glade callbacks.
72 Avoid adding code to geany.h if it will fit better elsewhere.
73 See the top of each ``src/*.c`` file for a brief description of what
78 Please be aware that anything with a doc-comment (a comment with an
79 extra asterix: ``/**``) is something in the plugin API. Things like
80 enums and structs can usually still be appended to, ensuring that all
81 the existing elements stay in place - this will keep the ABI stable.
85 Some structs like GeanyCallback cannot be appended to without
86 breaking the ABI because they are used to declare structs by
87 plugins, not just for accessing struct members through a pointer.
88 Normally structs should never be allocated by plugins.
90 Keeping the plugin ABI stable
91 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
92 Before the 1.0 release series, the ABI can change when necessary, and
93 even the API can change. An ABI change just means that all plugins will
94 not load and they must be rebuilt. An API change means that some plugins
95 might not build correctly.
97 If you're reordering or changing existing elements of structs that are
98 used as part of the plugin API, you must increment GEANY_ABI_VERSION
99 in plugindata.h. This is usually not needed if you're just appending
100 fields to structs. The GEANY_API_VERSION value should be incremented
101 for any changes to the plugin API, including appending elements.
103 If you're in any doubt when making changes to plugin API code, just ask us.
105 Plugin API/ABI design
106 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
107 You should not make plugins rely on the size of a struct. This means:
109 * Don't let plugins allocate any structs (stack or heap).
110 * Don't let plugins index any arrays of structs.
111 * Don't add any array fields to structs in case we want to change the
116 * The @file tag can go in the source .c file, but use the .h header name so
117 it appears normally in the generated documentation. See ui_utils.c for an
119 * Function doc-comments should always go in the source file, not the
120 header, so they can be updated if/when the implementation changes.
124 Use the code generation features of Glade instead of editing interface.c
125 or support.c. Glade 2.12 is required as later Glade versions do not
126 have the code generation features anymore. At some point we'll switch to
127 GtkBuilder, probably.
129 You can build Glade 2.12 and run the binary in place, without installing
130 it - this should work fine even if you have another version of Glade
131 installed on the system.
133 You can download Glade 2.12.2 here:
134 http://download.geany.org/glade-2.12.2.tar.gz
136 On recent GTK versions, you need a small patch to make it compile.
137 You can get the patch from:
138 http://download.geany.org/glade-2.12.2-build-fixes.patch
140 And then simply apply it like so::
142 $ /tmp/glade-2.12.2% patch -p1 < glade-2.12.2-build-fixes.patch
145 GTK versions & API documentation
146 --------------------------------
147 Geany requires GTK >= 2.12 and GLib >= 2.16. API symbols from newer
148 GTK/GLib versions should be avoided or made optional to keep the source
149 code building on older systems.
151 The official GTK 2.12 API documentation may not be available online
152 anymore, so we put it on http://www.geany.org/manual/gtk/. There
153 is also a tarball with all available files for download and use with
156 Using the 2.12 API documentation of the GTK libs (including GLib, GDK
157 and Pango) has the advantages that you don't get confused by any
158 newer API additions and you don't have to take care about whether
159 you can use them or not.
163 * Don't write long functions with a lot of variables and/or scopes - break
164 them down into smaller static functions where possible. This makes code
165 much easier to read and maintain.
166 * Use GLib types and functions - gint not int, g_free() not free().
167 * Your code should build against GLib 2.16 and GTK 2.12. At least for the
168 moment, we want to keep the minimum requirement for GTK at 2.12 (of
169 course, you can use the GTK_CHECK_VERSION macro to protect code using
171 * Variables should be declared before statements. You can use
172 gcc's -Wdeclaration-after-statement to warn about this.
173 * Don't let variable names shadow outer variables - use gcc's -Wshadow
176 Compiler options & warnings
177 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
178 Use ``CFLAGS='-Wfoo' ./configure`` or ``CFLAGS='-Wfoo' ./autogen.sh``
179 to set warning options (as well as anything else e.g. -g -O2).
181 * Enable warnings - for gcc use '-Wall -W' (and optionally
182 -Wno-unused-parameter to avoid unused parameter warnings in Glade
184 * You should try to write ISO C90 code for portability, so always
185 use C ``/* */`` comments and function_name(void) instead of
186 function_name(). This is for compatibility with various Unix-like
187 compilers. You should use -ansi to help check this.
190 Remember for gcc you need to enable optimization to get certain
191 warnings like uninitialized variables, but for debugging it's
192 better to have no optimization on.
196 * We use a tab width of 4 and indent completely with tabs not spaces.
197 Note the documentation files use (4) spaces instead, so you may want
198 to use the 'Detect from file' indent pref.
199 * Do not add whitespace at the end of lines, this adds to commit noise.
200 When editing with Geany set preference files->Strip trailing spaces
202 * Use the multiline comment ``/* */`` to comment small blocks of code,
203 functions descriptions or longer explanations of code, etc. C++ single
204 line comments will cause portability issues. The more comments are in
205 your code the better. (See also ``scripts/fix-cxx-comments.pl`` in Git).
206 * Lines should not be longer than about 100 characters and after 100
207 characters the lines should be wrapped and indented once more to
208 show that the line is continued.
209 * We don't put spaces between function names and the opening brace for
211 * Variable declarations come first after an opening brace, then one
212 newline to separate declarations and code.
213 * 2-operand operators should have a space each side.
214 * Function bodies should have 2 blank newlines after them.
215 * Align braces together on separate lines.
216 * Don't put assignments in 'if/while/etc' expressions.
217 * if statements without brace bodies should have the code on a separate
218 line, then a blank line afterwards.
219 * Use braces after if/while statements if the body uses another
221 * Try to fit in with the existing code style.
224 A few of the above can be done with the Git
225 ``scripts/fix-alignment.pl``, but it is quite dumb and it's much better
226 to write it correctly in the first place.
227 ``scripts/rstrip-whitespace.py`` just removes trailing whitespace.
230 .. below tabs should be used, but spaces are required for reST.
234 gint some_func(void);
237 gint function_long_name(gchar arg1, <too many args to fit on this line>,
240 /* variable declarations go before code in each scope */
241 gint foo, bar; /* variables can go on the same line */
242 gchar *ptr; /* pointer symbol must go next to variable name, not type */
243 gchar *another; /* pointers should normally go on separate lines */
245 /* Some long comment block
246 * taking several different
247 * lines to explain */
250 gint dir = -1; /* -1 to search backwards */
253 if ((bar & (guint)dir) != 7)
254 some_code(arg1, <too many args to fit on this line>,
262 gint another_function(void)
270 * Commit one thing at a time, do small commits. Commits should be
271 meaningful and not too big when possible; multiple small commits are
272 good if there is no good reason to group them.
273 * Use meaningful name and email in the Author and Committer fields.
274 This helps knowing who did what and allows to contact the author if
275 there is a good reason to do so (unlikely, but can happen).
276 * When working on a new feature, create a new branch for it. When
277 merging it, use the --no-ff option to make sure a merge commit will
278 be created to better track what happened. However, if the feature
279 only took one commit you might merge it fast-forward since there is
280 not history to keep together.
284 Follow the standard Git formatting:
286 * No line should use more than about 80 characters (around 72 is best).
287 * The first line is the commit's summary and is followed by an empty
288 line. This summary should be one line and one line only, thus less
289 than 80 characters. This summary should not include any punctuation
290 unless really needed. See it as the subject of an email: keep it
291 concise and as precise as you can, but not tool long.
292 * Following lines are optional detailed commit information, with
293 paragraphs separated by blank lines. This part should be as long as
294 needed to describe the commit in depth, should use proper
295 punctuation and should include any useful information, like the
296 motivation for the patch and/or any valuable details the diff itself
297 don't provide or don't make clear. Make it as complete as you think
298 it makes sense, but don't include an information that is better
299 explained by the commit's diff.
301 It is OK to use ASCII formatting like bullet list using "*" or "-",
302 etc. if useful, but emphasis (bold, italic, underline) should be
307 Ask the user if spawn fails in utils_open_browser()
309 Ask the user to configure a valid browser command if spawning it
310 fails rather than falling back to some arbitrary hardcoded defaults.
312 This avoid spawning an unexpected browser when the configured one is
313 wrong, and gives the user a chance to correctly fix the preference.
318 * Run with ``-v`` to print any debug messages.
319 * You can use a second instance (``geany -i``).
320 * To check first-run behaviour, use an alternate config directory by
321 passing ``-c some_dir`` (but make sure the directory is clean first).
322 * For debugging tips, see `GDB`_.
324 Bugs to watch out for
325 ---------------------
326 * Forgetting to check *doc->is_valid* when looping through
327 *documents_array* - instead use *foreach_document()*.
328 * Inserting fields into structs in the plugin API instead of appending.
329 * Not breaking the plugin ABI when necessary.
330 * Using an idle callback that doesn't check main_status.quitting.
331 * Forgetting CRLF line endings on Windows.
332 * Not handling Tabs & Spaces indent mode.
336 We try to use an unmodified version of Scintilla - any new lexers or
337 other changes should be passed on to the maintainers at
338 http://scintilla.org. We normally update to a new Scintilla release
339 shortly after one is made. See also scintilla/README.
341 Tagmanager was originally taken from Anjuta 1.2.2, and parts of it
342 (notably c.c) have been merged from later versions of Anjuta and
343 CTags. The independent Tagmanager library itself ceased development
344 before Geany was started. It's source code parsing is mostly taken from
345 Exuberant CTags (see http://ctags.sf.net). If appropriate it's good to
346 pass language parser changes back to the CTags project.
351 Some of these notes below are brief (or maybe incomplete) - please
352 contact the geany-devel mailing list for more information.
354 Using pre-defined autotools values
355 ----------------------------------
356 When you are use macros supplied by the autotools like GEANY_PREFIX,
357 GEANY_LIBDIR, GEANY_DATADIR and GEANY_LOCALEDIR be aware that these
358 might not be static strings when Geany is configured with
359 --enable-binreloc. Then these macros will be replaced by function calls
360 (in src/prefix.h). So, don't use anything like
361 printf("Prefix: " GEANY_PREFIX); but instead use
362 printf("Prefix: %s", GEANY_PREFIX);
364 Adding a source file foo.[hc] in src/ or plugins/
365 -------------------------------------------------
366 * Add foo.c, foo.h to SRCS in path/Makefile.am.
367 * Add foo.o to OBJS in path/makefile.win32.
368 * Add path/foo.c to geany_sources in wscript.
369 * Add path/foo.c to po/POTFILES.in (for string translation).
373 You can add a filetype without syntax highlighting or tag parsing, but
374 check to see if those features have been written in other projects first.
376 * Add GEANY_FILETYPES_FOO to filetypes.h.
377 * Initialize GEANY_FILETYPES_FOO in init_builtin_filetypes() of
378 filetypes.c. You should use filetype_make_title() to avoid a
379 translation whenever possible.
380 * Update data/filetype_extensions.conf.
382 filetypes.* configuration file
383 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
384 All languages need a data/filetypes.foo configuration file. See
385 the "Filetype definition files" section in the manual and/or
386 data/filetypes.c for an example.
388 Programming languages should have:
390 * [keywords] if the lexer supports it.
391 * [settings] mostly for comment settings.
392 * [build_settings] for commands to run.
394 For languages with a Scintilla lexer, there should be a [styling] section,
395 to correspond to the styles used in styleset_foo() in highlighting.c -
400 It may be possible to use an existing Scintilla lexer in the scintilla/
401 subdirectory - if not, you will need to find (or write) one,
402 LexFoo.cxx. Try the official Scintilla project first.
405 We won't accept adding a lexer that conflicts with one in
406 Scintilla. All new lexers should be submitted back to the Scintilla
407 project to save duplication of work.
409 When adding a lexer, update:
411 * scintilla/Makefile.am
412 * scintilla/makefile.win32
414 * scintilla/KeyWords.cxx - add a LINK_LEXER command *manually*
416 For syntax highlighting, you will need to edit highlighting.c and add
417 the following things:
419 1. Write styleset_foo_init() to setup lexer styles and load style
420 settings from the filetypes.foo configuration file. You should probably
421 start by copying and adapting another filetype's initialization, such
422 as styleset_tcl_init(). You may want to use load_style_entries().
423 2. Write styleset_foo() to apply styles when a new scintilla widget
424 is created. Again you could copy and adapt a function like
425 styleset_tcl(). You may want to use apply_style_entries().
426 3. In highlighting_init_styles(), add
427 ``init_styleset_case(GEANY_FILETYPES_FOO, styleset_foo_init);``.
428 4. In highlighting_set_styles(), add
429 ``styleset_case(GEANY_FILETYPES_FOO, styleset_foo);``.
430 5. Write data/filetypes.foo configuration file [styling] section. See
431 the manual and see data/filetypes.d for a named style example.
434 Please try to make your styles fit in with the other filetypes'
435 default colors, and to use named styles where possible (e.g.
436 "commentline=comment"). Filetypes that share a lexer should have
437 the same colors. If not using named styles, leave the background color
438 empty to match the default color.
440 Error message parsing
441 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
442 New-style error message parsing is done with an extended GNU-style regex
443 stored in the filetypes.foo file - see the [build_settings] information
444 in the manual for details.
446 Old-style error message parsing is done in
447 msgwin_parse_compiler_error_line() of msgwindow.c - see the ParseData
448 typedef for more information.
452 If the lexer has comment styles, you should add them in
453 highlighting_is_comment_style(). You should also update
454 highlighting_is_string_style() for string/character styles. For now,
455 this prevents calltips and autocompletion when typing in a comment
456 (but it can still be forced by the user).
458 For brace indentation, update lexer_has_braces() in editor.c;
459 indentation after ':' is done from on_new_line_added().
461 If the Scintilla lexer supports user type keyword highlighting (e.g.
462 SCLEX_CPP), update editor_lexer_get_type_keyword_idx() in editor.c.
464 Adding a TagManager parser
465 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
466 This assumes the filetype for Geany already exists.
468 First write or find a CTags compatible parser, foo.c. Note that there
469 are some language patches for CTags at:
470 http://sf.net/projects/ctags - see the tracker.
472 (You can also try the Anjuta project's tagmanager codebase.)
475 From Geany 1.22 GLib's GRegex engine is used instead of POSIX
476 regex, unlike CTags. It should be close enough to POSIX to work
478 We no longer support regex parsers with the "b" regex flag
479 option set and Geany will print debug warnings if it's used.
480 CTags supports it but doesn't currently (2011) include any
481 parsers that use it. It should be easy to convert to extended
486 * Add foo.c to SRCS in Makefile.am.
487 * Add foo.o to OBJS in makefile.win32.
488 * Add path/foo.c to geany_sources in wscript.
489 * Add Foo to parsers.h & fill in comment with parser number for foo.
492 Edit FooKinds 3rd column to match a s_tag_type_names string in tm_tag.c.
493 (You may want to make the symbols.c change before doing this).
495 In filetypes.c, init_builtin_filetypes():
496 Set filetypes[GEANY_FILETYPES_FOO].lang = foo's parser number.
499 Unless your parser uses C-like tag type kinds, update
500 add_top_level_items() for foo, calling tag_list_add_groups(). See
501 get_tag_type_iter() for which tv_iters fields to use.
509 When a GLib or GTK warning is printed, often you want to get a
510 backtrace to find out what code caused them. You can do that with the
511 ``--g-fatal-warnings`` argument, which will abort Geany on the first
514 But for ordinary testing, you don't always want your editor to abort
515 just because of a warning - use::
517 (gdb) b handler_log if level <= G_LOG_LEVEL_WARNING
520 Running with batch commands
521 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
524 $ gdb src/geany -x gdb-commands
526 Where ``gdb-commands`` is a file with the following lines::
529 b handler_log if level <= G_LOG_LEVEL_WARNING
535 This is useful so you can load plugins without installing them first.
536 Alternatively you can use a symlink in ~/.config/geany/plugins or
537 $prefix/lib/geany (where $prefix is /usr/local by default).
539 The gdb session below was run from the toplevel Geany source directory.
540 Start normally with e.g. "gdb src/geany".
542 Press Ctrl-C from the gdb window to interrupt program execution.
546 Program received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
547 0x00d16402 in __kernel_vsyscall ()
548 (gdb) call plugin_new("./plugins/.libs/demoplugin.so")
549 ** INFO: Loaded: ./plugins/.libs/demoplugin.so (Demo)
550 $1 = (Plugin *) 0x905a890
554 Program received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
555 0x00d16402 in __kernel_vsyscall ()
556 (gdb) call plugin_free(0x905a890)
557 ** INFO: Unloaded: ./plugins/.libs/demoplugin.so
564 The geany-plugins autotools script automatically detects the
565 installed system Geany and builds the plugins against that.
567 To use plugins with a development version of Geany built with
568 a different prefix, the plugins will need to be compiled against
569 that version if the ABI has changed.
571 To do this you need to specify both --prefix and --with-geany-libdir
572 to the plugin configure. Normally the plugin prefix is the
573 same as the Geany prefix to keep plugins with the version of Geany
574 that they are compiled against, and with-geany-libdir is the Geany
577 Whilst it is possible for the plugin prefix to be different to
578 the prefix of the libdir (which is why there are two settings),
579 it is probably better to keep the version of Geany and its plugins